We're Born, We Live, We Die
by radredknuxfan
Summary: A fateful crash leads to tragic journey of survival. With their chances against them and being hounded at every turn, Skipper has to be willing to sacrifice everything. Who will survive and who will be devoured by the storm around them? This story was adopted from GearSolidSnake, so the premise and first chapter is all credited to him.
1. Chapter 1

Based off the movie _The Grey_. However, it is only connected in premise and setting alone. The characters, events, and themes are altered.

Now, let me explain before you guys start asking questions. I've adopted this story from GearSolidSnake, so everything that you see in this first chapter was written by him. Everything after that will be my writing. Hopefully, the difference isn't too jarring, considering I've never actually seen The Grey. I do know roughly what happened, though.

**I do not own **_**Penguins of Madagascar**_** or **_**The Grey**_**, the characters and premise belong to their respected owners as such.**

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><p>A blinding flash of white. They say it's the first thing you see coming into this world as well as when you leave it; that deadly color, a symbol of holiness and purity.<p>

We're born into this light; we die in this light. The same kindness and mercy in life is the same desperation and withering decay.

We're born. We Live. We die. It's inevitable.

Our main character realized this at an unforgivablely young age. A penguin at the Central Park Zoo would be thought as the least likely to understand this so deeply. Yet, this discrimination of species did not spare him of life's cruel nature.

Despite everything, this young operative tried his best to mask the pains of life. Amongst his squad of fellow penguin agents, he found the strength to shield himself from the cruel knowledge of our own eventual demise. Life was worth every cent to him. Every day was spent to its fullest extent. Even in the heat of their most dangerous missions, he felt as alive as could be. He had the trust and strength of his friends to guide him. He wasn't a frightened child anymore.

Not only through his comrades, but also this penguin found hope through a female otter at the zoo; Marlene. Her gleaming outlook and every positive aspect surrounded in her aura helped to him recover.

He learned to forget...

How did this individual become like this? How could a penguin become so detached in his knowledge of the universe?

It started with his unfortunate childhood. The memories of his parents were vague. He hardly remembered anything about them. He was orphaned when he was very, very young. When he was hardly able to handle himself, his parents departed into that blinding envelope of light and darkness, never to return. It was after these events he was accepted into his current squad.

All he could remember was a single, meditative conversation with his father.

The older penguin had tried explaining to his young son what this life had in store.

"Son..." the father said, a flipper resting on his son, "You're mother and I will be gone for a bit. We've got to go on a trip, okay? We may not be back for sometime."

"Why?" the young penguin asked sincerely.

Dad thought carefully before saying, "It's about our work. You're the man of the house now, but we'll be back for your birthday, and we'll throw a big party. Does that sound good?"

The fledgling nodded gleefully.

"But in case something happens, I want you to know that nothing bad will happen to you. We have someone to help you in case your mother and I run into... trouble..."

He giggled, "Nothing could happen to us. We're gonna be family forever!"

A painful look of remorse lay hidden in the father's expression of playfulness and innocence. "Well..." He tried explaining, "That may not be. Your mother and I love you with all of our hearts, but sometimes we won't be there at your side. Sometimes we won't be there at all. I don't think there's any way to stop this."

"Why?" The young penguin asked sincerely. His eyes showed a conflict of innocence and reality. He didn't want to hear this kind of talk.

"Son, this world can be mean. Everything dies. One day, your mom will die, I will die, and even you will die. But you've got to ask yourself what your life is worth until that day."

This new information sat with the small child. "Dad..." He finally continued.

His father was gone. Everything around the small boy was engulfed in the snow and ice... A blinding light all around...

"Dad...?!"

Life has come to reap the rest of its bounty...

* * *

><p><em>"Agh!"<em>

Our hero awoke on the freezing snow. His tight feathers blocked the wind chill, thankfully. His head was in the deepest daze, as if he had slept for centuries.

White... All around was a deep, bone-chilling white. The wind blew fiercely as visibility was reduced to only a few feet, with the snow piling around all sides.

The penguin stood up. "Hello?!" He called out. "Hel- agh!"

He reached his flipper reached down to his stomach, only to reveal a ghastly red liquid. Blood. He struggled to keep hold of himself lest he fall victim to shock, then to the vicious frost around him.

A small shard of metal had inserted itself into his soft flesh. What to do... What to do...? If he pulled it out, he would open the wound further and bleed to death. But, its current state left it a hazard.

His left flipper was gashed. The snow upon the wound numbed it at least, yet the penguin could hardly walk.

Large metal plates lay strewn across the snowy field. Further ahead, he could dimly see the fire of a ruined engine tank.

Plane crash... That's all he knew... Just a plane crash...

There was blood staining the fluffy snow all around. Not his blood either. He looked to see the mangled carcass of another animal. Our hero didn't get a chance to see who is was, only the bloody heaped now packed on by the snow and ice.

"Help! Can someone help me?!" He called out desperately.

What... What just happened...?

Everything up to this point lay as a haze. How did he come into this precarious state? Where was he? Who else was alright?

Even more pressing was the most important question of them all: How the hell would he get out...?

"Hey...!" A voice called further ahead. A figure shuffled its way over to our protagonist at a limping pace.

Soon, the wind died down enough for the two to see each other clearly. Something was wrong.

"Hey! What happened?! Hey- Oh my God...!"

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><p>Leave a review of what you think so far.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Just as a reminder, everything from this chapter on is my writing.

EDIT: After discussing things with GearSolidSnake, I realized that the way I wrote this chapter wasn't the best way to do so, considering it would lead to a lot of confusion, so all mentions of short penguin and round penguin are going to replaced by Skipper and Private, respectively.

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><p>The two penguins stared at each other, unsure of what to do next.<p>

"Here, let me help you with that."

The figure slowly limped his way over to our protagonist, intending to help remove the shard from his stomach, but he immediately began crawling away, wincing in pain as his bleeding flipper made contact with the freezing snow.

"N-no! Please don't!"

"I can't just leave you here like this!"

The protagonist looked around, trying to find if there was anything that could help with their predicament. Unfortunately, all he could see was snow, so he turned back to the other penguin, grunting in pain as the twisting aggravated the stomach wound. His vision swam as the loss of blood started to cause problems.

"Take a look around and see if there are any medical supplies."

The figure nodded and began searching around the area. Eventually, he managed to find a medical kit inside one of the parts of the flaming wreckage of the plane.

Silently praying for it not to be already picked clean, he opened the box and found it full of supplies. Elated, he kissed the box and picked it up, returning to the other penguin.

"Here it is, sir!"

"Please…call me by my real name."

"Alright, fine. Here it is, Skipper."

The other penguin began to pull out the supplies that he would need to perform First Aid. When he got all that he needed, he reached over and grabbed the shard that was embedded in Skipper's stomach.

"W-wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking this thing out. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a metal shard in your stomach?"

Skipper opened his beak to protest, but he realized that the other penguin, which he finally could see was about his size but much rounder, was in fact right. He tried to remember who the other penguin was, but his mind was in a haze from the loss of blood, so he tried not to overexert himself.

The rounder penguin grabbed the shard once again, and without waiting for approval, he started pulling at the shard, the only thing he could hear being screams of pain.

Finally, the round penguin successfully removed the shard, and he grabbed the medical tape, bandaging his comrade up. Once he finally finished, the round penguin's name finally came to Skipper.

"Thanks, Private."

Skipper attempted to get up, but Private stopped him.

"Get up slowly. It's probably still going to hurt for you to move."

He reluctantly did as he was told; expecting his comrade to be proved incorrect, but it wasn't the case as a wave of pain racked through his body. But he gritted his beak, slowly making his way forward before being having to use Private as a crutch.

As they slowly made their way away from the wreckage of the plane, Private began to talk.

"I've located some of the other survivors over the past few days. There's a campsite we made not too far from here. They should all still be there."

"How long have I been out?"

"No idea exactly. I would probably say at least a few hours."

Skipper was hit with a pang of guilt, thinking about how their friends and family back at home must be worried by now.

* * *

><p>A little while later, the two penguins arrived at the campsite to find a small group of people already there in various states of health. Most of them looked okay to Skipper, but there were a few who were lying on the ground sick.<p>

Skipper looked around, suddenly realizing that there was no fire. Without even thinking about it, he walked in the middle of the group of people and began speaking.

"Hey, why haven't you guys built a fire yet?"

"We've tried! The wind keeps blowing it out when we try to light one."

Skipper looked at who replied to his question, and he saw that it was a female otter. Unfortunately, the team didn't exactly have enough time to get to know each other before they had to get on the plane, so he had to quickly run through a list of names in his head before speaking to her again.

"You're…Marlene, right?"

Marlene nodded.

"Did you try moving the fire into the woods? It might help cut down on the wind."

"Kowalski brought it up way before you guys even got here. I've heard wolves, though, so I told him that we probably shouldn't."

"Wolves?" asked Skipper.

Marlene nodded once again, and Skipper sighed.

"I had a feeling things wouldn't be that easy. Look, can you show me where this 'Kowalski' is?"

Marlene pointed towards another penguin that looked much taller than he was. Skipper limped over and tried to catch the tall penguin's attention.

"Excuse me, are you Kowalski by any chance?"

Unfortunately, Kowalski was too busy freaking out due to the situation they were all in to notice. This forced Skipper to slap him to bring him back to his senses.

"Pull yourself together! If we're going to survive, we're going to need to work as a team."

"Oh…sorry about that. I've never really found myself in this kind of situation before, to be honest."

Skipper sighed.

"Look, just start working on building a fire. It looks like it's starting to get dark, and we're not going to have a chance against the wolves if we don't have light."

"But what about the wind? I'm pretty sure someone mentioned to you that the wind keeps blowing the fire out."

"Then just block it with your bodies! We have to make sacrifices if we want to make it through, and complete warmth is going to be pretty much impossible in a place like this."

Kowalski reluctantly nodded, still not convinced they were going to be able to pull something like that off, but when the survivors finally got a fire together and placed themselves between the fire and the direction the wind was blowing in from, they found that it worked perfectly.

* * *

><p>Hunger began to set in as night fell at the campsite. The air was tense as everyone was busy trying to keep their minds off the fact that they were hungry by concentrating on staying warm.<p>

Unfortunately, Kowalski was unable to do that, as he got up from his seat and began making his way away from the campsite, only to be stopped by Skipper.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To find some food. I'm starving!"

"No you're not. You do realize that there are wolves around, correct?"

"Oh come on!"

"I'm in charge here, Kowalski, and I'm only looking out for everyone's safety. Now, I want everyone to get some sleep. When morning comes, we'll head out and hunt for food. You got that?"

Kowalski didn't answer, as he was staring over Skipper's shoulder at a spot in the woods a few feet away. Skipper turned around, wondering what he was looking at, when he saw a figure in the woods.

"Stay here."

He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find, which was a small log, before slowly making his way over to the figure, which turned out to be a corpse.

Skipper reeled back temporarily, taken aback as he realized that he recognized the body as one of his teammates for the expedition, but the name escaped him at the moment. He slowly crept back up and poked it with the log to make sure that it was actually dead before he was suddenly ambushed by a wolf.

Thankfully, he had his log in both flippers as he fell to the ground, which he used by pressing into the wolf's neck, preventing its teeth from reaching his own neck.

The yelp that Skipper gave off as he was thrown to the ground, combined with the snarling from the wolf alerted people back at the camp, and Private came rushing towards them carrying a large rock, which he threw at the wolf, catching it in the face and scaring it off.

Skipper took a few moments to catch his breath before Private helped him up to his feet.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I think we might be in trouble, though."

"How so? That was only one wolf."

"I think we might be in their territory. We're going to need to have someone keep watch for them."

Private nodded, trusting his judgment. When they finally returned to the camp, Skipper relayed his plan to the rest of the survivors.

"Are there any volunteers?"

A monkey raised his hand.

"Alright, and your name is?"

The monkey didn't reply, which annoyed Skipper. He turned towards Kowalski, who was closest to him.

"Do you know his name?"

"I think somebody said it was Phil."

"Alright, Phil. You're on watch duty for tonight. If there are any signs of wolves, wake one of us up immediately. Do you understand?"

Phil nodded.

"Everyone else to bed! We're going to be hunting early tomorrow!"

The survivors all did their best to huddle in front of the fire before going to bed, including Skipper. However, before he could sleep, he silently said a prayer, hoping that they would all still be alive the next morning.

* * *

><p>Most of these chapters are probably going to be a little bit shorter than my average word count, but that really depends on how well the story flows in my head.<p>

Anyway, please let me know what you think. Tell me how it compares to GearSolidSnake's chapter. I'm really interested in knowing how I compare with what he wrote for Chapter 1.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a quiet morning on the highways of Alaska. Most people would probably be asleep at this time of day, but there was one small car driving along the road containing Skipper. He was on his way to an airfield a few miles down the road, as he was contracted to assist an oil drilling team.

As he drove down the road, in his mind he was second-guessing himself, wondering why he agreed to help keep wolves away from the team after what happened the last time.

Eliminating wolves actually used to be a job of his. It was a thankless job, but his clients paid well, so he dealt with it. However, on his last day, his aim was off, and he only succeeded in wounding the animal.

As he walked up and saw the wolf breathing heavily, he knew it was unlikely that it was going to live, and he realized just how worthless of a penguin he was, depleting the population of a species so that ten people could live.

At that moment, he resolved never to harm another animal without reason.

Unfortunately, once his job was completed, the calls kept coming in asking him for help with other teams. He kept refusing to help, but no one listened. It got to the point where depression kicked in, as he believed that his hunting prowess was all he was good for.

So, still feeling incredibly worthless, Skipper went into his house one day while his wife was gone, wrote a vague letter to her avoiding any of the details as to why he felt this way, and put the barrel of his rifle into his beak.

Unfortunately, before he could pull the trigger, the phone rang. Sighing in disgust, he put the gun down and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Is this Skipper I'm calling?" said the voice on the other end.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

"Well, I've heard about you helped protect some oil drillers from wolves. My team and I were hoping we could hire you to help us out on an expedition to the northern part of the state."

Skipper once again sighed, pinching the bridge of his beak.

"As I've told the last twenty people who've called me, I don't do that kind of thing anymore. Find someone else."

Before Skipper could hang up, the voice spoke again, with a tinge of desperation in his tone.

"Please, Skipper! We barely have any money, and the north is practically the only part of the state that hasn't already been drilled. And that's the most dangerous part of the state!"

Skipper paused as he considered what the voice said.

"What's your name?"

"Um, well…some people I know call me Private."

"So, what's your real name, then?"

Private didn't answer immediately.

"I'd rather not say. I never liked what my parents named me."

Skipper was curious what kind of name would lead to that kind of reaction, but he decided to let Private off.

"Alright, I'll help you guys out. After that, I'm done. I'm leaving Alaska and heading south."

"Oh, thank you, Skipper! My team and I really appreciate your assistance."

Private relayed the information to Skipper on where he would meet the team, and Skipper hung up. As he sat down and crumpled up the suicide note to throw into the fire, he couldn't help but wonder what exactly convinced him to agree to this.

* * *

><p>Skipper awoke with a jump as a blast of freezing air hit him. As he sat up and looked around the area, he suddenly realized that the fire was out, and he was up in a second, frantically checking up on everyone as he hoped that the fire at least survived the night.<p>

Thankfully, everyone was still okay as they all awoke from being roughly shaken by Skipper.

"Is everyone doing alright? I saw that the fire went out, so make sure you can all still feel everything. We don't want anyone getting frostbite."

The penguins were okay, mostly because they were built for this kind of weather. As for the other survivors, they all quickly checked themselves, not finding any evidence of frostbite. Skipper sighed in relief, thankful that the fire managed to survive the night.

Suddenly, he noticed the fact that one of the survivors was missing. He quickly racked his brain trying to figure out who was missing, when he remembered what happened last night.

"Hey, where's that monkey Phil? He was supposed to stay near the camp site!"

Everyone else looked around, but there was no sign of the silent monkey, until Private suddenly saw something a few feet away from the group.

"Hey Skipper, I think I see something over there!"

Skipper looked over to where Private was pointing and saw something that looked vaguely like that corpse he saw last night.

"Oh no."

He quickly rushed over to the body and saw that it was indeed Phil, who was most likely killed by the wolves. His entire midsection was completely gone, with only his ribs still showing.

Skipper turned towards the rest of the group.

"How did wolves get into our campsite without anyone noticing? You'd figure that we would at least hear some kind of scream."

"Well, if you remember from last night, Skipper, Phil doesn't talk. I'm not sure if he's mute or he prefers speaking through sign language, but he would most likely not be able to scream when he's…being eaten by wolves." said Kowalski, suppressing a shiver at the thought.

Skipper slowly shook his head in dismay before speaking again.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. If there's anyone who wants to join me for hunting, do it now. I'm not waiting around for long."

Skipper waited for a few seconds, eventually being joined by Private, Kowalski, and another penguin he hasn't personally met before.

"And you are?"

The other penguin replied with a string of gibberish.

"Come again? I didn't catch that."

The other penguin only looked at Skipper blankly, his tongue lolling out of his beak.

"I believe he said that his name was Rico, Skipper." said Kowalski.

"Oh, alright then. Wait…you can understand that gobbledygook?"

"Not entirely. I did manage to catch his name in there, though."

Skipper shrugged, deciding not to worry about it.

"Come on, let's go."

The four penguins walked off, each carrying a rifle that the other survivors had managed to pull out of the rubble of the plane.

* * *

><p>As the hunting team walked through the forest desperately trying to stave off the biting cold, Skipper decided he needed to do something to keep his mind off of the cold, so he decided to strike up a conversation.<p>

"So Kowalski, what made you decide to join his team?" he asked, pointing towards Private.

"Um…to be honest, I'm not exactly sure why. There was an ad in the paper looking for a scientific mind to join his expedition, and I needed some money, so I decided to join up."

Kowalski then looked over at Private.

"Come to think of it, you never did mention what I was actually needed for."

"Oh, sorry Kowalski. It kind of slipped my mind after the crash. I actually needed someone who could help us work the machines that can help us find the oil underground. I guess things didn't work out quite that way, huh?"

"Mm-hm." said Kowalski before looking forward once again.

Skipper turned towards Rico once he was certain Kowalski and Private were done talking.

"What about you, Rico?"

Rather than answer, Rico threw up a stick of dynamite and caught it in his flipper, showing it to Skipper.

"Kaboom kaboom!"

Skipper was slightly disturbed. He wondered for a second what other dangerous objects he had in there before he suddenly realized the benefits of having someone like him.

"That could be a nice defense against predators."

Rico smiled dumbly, making Skipper wonder what exactly was wrong with him.

"Hey Kowalski, what's the deal with him?" he whispered to the taller penguin as he pointed at Rico.

Kowalski shrugged.

"I'm about as clueless as you are, Skipper. Let's not worry about him, though. He doesn't look like a danger to the group. At least, not yet."

Skipper looked back at Rico, not sure whether he should trust Kowalski's judgment or not.

"Alright, Kowalski. We'll play it your way."

Suddenly, Skipper spotted a deer not too far from where they were standing. He quickly quieted down the other guys and slowly made his way over to a bush, where he could spy on the deer without being noticed.

The other penguins joined him a few seconds later, all of them giving Skipper questioning looks. Rather than explain himself by speaking, he pointed towards the deer and told them all to stay quiet.

Skipper slowly crept out of the bush, trying to get closer to the still unaware deer. However, before he could even think about taking the shot, a wolf jumped in from the brush and took the deer down like it was nothing.

Skipper quietly swore to himself before he suddenly heard footsteps coming from behind him. Quickly reacting, he reached out to his side and grabbed the cause of said footsteps, throwing him down to the ground and pinning him using his other flipper.

As the figure struggled, Skipper looked down and saw that it was Private who was under him.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed, Private?"

"That wolf just stole our only food, Skipper!"

"And he's going to have you for dessert if you reveal yourself like that. Don't be stupid, Private!"

Private sighed, slumping in defeat.

"I'm sorry, Skipper. I'm just really hungry right now."

"I know. We all are, too."

Skipper released his grip on Private, and the round penguin brushed all of the snow off of his body.

* * *

><p>Unfortunately, even after another hour or so of searching, the hunting party could only manage to get a few rabbits, which probably wouldn't last them very long.<p>

"Sorry about missing that shot, Skipper. We might have actually had a deer if I wasn't way off with my aim."

"Don't worry about it, Private. These rabbits should at least get us through the night. Then we'll worry about getting more food later."

However, their light hearted mood was short-lived, as they returned to the camp to find two of the other survivors in a heated argument, supplies strewn around the area they were standing in.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

* * *

><p>Sorry about the awkward cliffhanger. I didn't want to make this chapter too long, and it would've probably ended up that way if I continued on.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

The arguing survivors froze as they heard Skipper's outburst. One of them, a puffin, turned to face him as he tried to explain himself.

"It's just a simple misunderstanding, sir."

Skipper could hear the Danish accent coming from the puffin, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"What's your name?"

"Hans, sir. I came to the US from Denmark a few months ago."

"I can tell." said Skipper, giving Hans an unimpressed look before continuing on.

"Judging from all of our stuff being scattered around the area, I would imagine that this is more than just 'a simple misunderstanding'. Mind explaining what you two are going on about?"

The other survivor stepped forward to offer his side of the story, but Skipper held up a flipper to silence him.

"Name first. Then you can explain yourself."

"My name's Maurice. And the reason we were arguing is because Hans over there thinks that he should be leading the group."

Skipper was noticeably surprised to hear someone wanting to take over his job, but he kept his cool, keeping his focus on Maurice at the moment.

"And what about you? What's your side of this?"

Maurice glanced away for a second, catching Skipper's attention.

"Well, um…I figured that you would be the best."

Skipper easily saw through Maurice's lie, and he showed him so by giving the aye-aye an unconvinced look. Maurice finally relented not too long after, and he told the real story.

"Alright, I'll admit that you're not my first choice, but now that I've gotten to know some of the others, I think that you're the best we got."

Skipper nodded before walking over and placing himself in between the two of them.

"Now, I want the both of you to quit it with your petty squabbles right now. We can't afford to be fighting among ourselves if we want to survive long enough to get out of here."

Both Maurice and Hans reluctantly went their separate ways, although Hans did give Skipper a look of distrust. Unfortunately, Skipper didn't see it, since he was looking at Maurice to make sure he wouldn't do anything.

* * *

><p>An hour or so passed as the survivors tried to remain warm next to the fire that they rebuilt soon after the argument happened. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to stay healthy, as a baboon named Darla came down with pneumonia.<p>

With Kowalski being the scientific brain that he was, it ended up becoming his job to take care of her despite not knowing a whole lot about medicine. This ended up angering Private when he found out, and he confronted Kowalski not too long after.

"You told me on the phone that you knew a bunch about medicine! I needed someone to be our medic as well as work the equipment!"

Kowalski backed away slightly, trying to put some space between them as he explained himself.

"I'm sorry to put the blame on you Private, but you never asked how well I knew medicine. I only have a basic understanding of medical procedures."

Attempting to process this new revelation, Private turned around and clutched at his head, stumbling around.

"Oh, we're so screwed! Why didn't I ask that before?"

Skipper walked over to where Private was, grabbing him by the chest and slapping him in the face.

"Get a hold of yourself, Private! You put this team together, and you're going to have to learn from your mistakes."

Private finally calmed down, and he turned towards Kowalski, sighing.

"Just try and see what you can do. I don't know if we're gonna be able to save her."

Everyone looked over worriedly at Darla, who was shivering under a spare blanket that someone managed to scrounge from the plane wreckage.

Suddenly, before business could resume as usual, a hand came up from within the crowd of survivors.

"I can help take care of her."

The owner of said hand stepped forward, and it turned out to be Marlene, who had a look of determination on her face.

Private paused as he considered whether to let her do it. However, before he could make that decision, Skipper stepped forward to make it for him.

"That's fine, Marlene. We could use all the help we can get for her."

Both Kowalski and Marlene walked over to where Darla was and began taking care of her as best as they could. As for the rest of the group, they returned to business as usual.

* * *

><p>Another hour passed, and there was still no change in their situation. It was beginning to get dark, and while the fire was still burning as bright as ever, everyone could hear the howls of wolves from off in the distance. This made Skipper slightly nervous, as there was no telling when the wolves would come into their campsite.<p>

He quickly tried to come up with a solution to their predicament, and only one idea popped into his head. He stood up and walked over to Private, who was trying to keep up a conversation with Rico and Maurice, which was difficult considering Rico.

"Hey Private, can I talk to you for a second?"

Private stared at Skipper quizzically for a second before standing up and following Skipper back to where he was originally sitting.

"What's up?"

Skipper sighed before answering.

"I think we should probably be moving to another campsite. I don't like our chances if we stay here where all the wolves are."

Private paused.

"I think you're right. Our luck is probably bound to run out sometime. But what about Darla? I'm not sure if she's gonna be able to keep up with us."

Skipper could see Private's point, but he figured it probably wouldn't be as big of a deal as Private says.

"I doubt pneumonia is going to prevent you from being able to walk. Besides, we can always just have someone help her along."

Private didn't really like the flippant tone that Skipper had when he said that, but he did agree that she could travel with them with some help.

"Alright, we'll let the group know in the morning. How does that sound?"

Skipper only responded with a nod before turning to the rest of the group.

"Time to go to sleep, everybody. It's getting late."

A majority of the group was already way ahead of Skipper, as they were already sound asleep. As for the rest of the survivors who were still awake, they all went to sleep soon after Skipper's call.

* * *

><p>As Skipper continued traveling down Alaska's highways, his mind continued to wander as he wondered whether he could kill another wolf after watching that last one slowly die.<p>

"God, I wish that I didn't agree to this job." he said to himself.

It was a few days after he was initially contracted to the job, and he was questioning his decision making skills the entire time.

Why did he cave for this job, of all the jobs that he could have taken in the state?

That question continued to run through his mind repeatedly, to the point where it was starting to bother him that he didn't know.

Deciding to figure it out later, he returned to focusing on the road, only to suddenly realize that he made it to the airfield. Caught off guard, he nearly passed by the turn, which forced him to slam on the brakes to slow down enough.

Thankfully, no one was on the road, so his car suddenly stopping didn't lead to any problems.

As he entered the airfield, he took a look around, hoping that he wouldn't have to look very long to find the one he was looking for, but unfortunately, there were a large number of planes there considering this was the only airfield in the area.

Skipper swore to himself. Sighing, he continued to drive, hoping that no one was around to force him to walk on foot.

Finally, after about ten minutes of searching, Skipper spotted a group of people loading cargo into a plane that had its own little spot on the airfield. Slightly annoyed at being forced to look around for no reason, Skipper drove towards said plane, parking his car a good distance away to prevent it from getting hit by anything.

Eventually, after a few minutes of walking, Skipper arrived in the vicinity of the plane and he took a look around, trying to see if he could figure out who Private was.

He didn't have to figure it out himself, though, as one of the penguins in the group turned around and spotted him standing there. Smiling, he walked over to where Skipper was standing.

"I see you've finally made it. You must be Skipper, I assume."

As the two penguins shook flippers, Skipper studied the penguin's face. Young…inexperienced…Skipper had a feeling that this was at least his second or third expedition, if not the first.

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed the look of confusion on the other penguin's face.

"Are you alright, Skipper? It looks like you've kind of zoned out there for a second."

"Oh no, I'm fine. I was just getting an idea of who I'm working with. Anyway, I'm guessing that you must be Private?"

"Yes sir."

Skipper remembered the conversation he had with Private over the phone, and he admittedly thought that the young penguin would look different, judging from his voice.

"So anyway, is there anything you want me to do before we take off?"

"Oh yeah, actually there is. We're kind of running low on time before the airfield wants us to take off, so we'd all appreciate it if you could help us load the supplies on to the plane. Would that be a problem?"

Skipper paused for a second.

"No, I can help you guys out."

Private nodded, but as he was about to return to the group, Skipper placed a flipper on his shoulder.

"Do we have enough time for me to introduce myself? These kinds of expeditions tend to go well when people know each other."

Private nervously glanced off to the side, catching Skipper's attention. He looked at the young penguin, slightly curious as to what was on his mind. However, before he could ask, Private suddenly spoke up again.

"I'm afraid we don't have that much time. We're already behind schedule. If you want to do that on the plane, though, feel free."

Skipper shrugged.

"Alright, suit yourself."

The two penguins joined the rest of the team, unaware of just how bad their expedition was going to get.


	5. Chapter 5

Skipper woke up the next morning to a large amount of commotion coming from the other end of the campsite.

Wondering what was going on, he stood up and made his way over to where the crowd was, trying to get a look at what they were all clustered around. Unfortunately, he couldn't get a good look, so he decided to ask someone.

He looked around the group and found Private. Walking over, he tapped him on the shoulder and the two of them walked off to the side of the campsite to at least get some quiet.

"What's going on, Private? What's with all of the commotion?"

"It's Darla."

Skipper paused for a second before he suddenly remembered that she went down with pneumonia.

"How is she?"

Private simply shook his head, staring at the ground forlornly.

"Dammit. We really need to get out of here as soon as possible. We've already lost three people!"

Although Private was slightly caught off guard by the fact that Skipper mentioned three people, he didn't feel that it was the right time to do a head count, so he chose to let it go and figure out who it was later.

"While I do agree with you that this place isn't safe anymore, where are we going to go? It's nothing but white out there! And even then, there's no guarantee that the wolves will leave us alone, even if we do manage to find a new place to stay!"

"Well, we can't stay here and let them pick us off one by one!"

Private sighed, looking away for a few seconds before meeting Skipper's eyes.

"If you think that's best for us to survive, Skipper, then I'll come along. What are you gonna do about the others, though? I don't know if they're gonna be willing, especially right after Darla."

"I'll figure something out."

The two penguins turned around and returned to the rest of the group, who had all disbanded from keeping vigil over Darla and were trying to keep themselves busy, with an air of sadness hanging over them.

The only one still keeping watch over her was Kowalski, and he seemed to be the most distraught about it. When Skipper reached where he was sitting, he placed a flipper on his shoulder, attempting to comfort the tall penguin.

"I did the best I could."

Kowalski wiped his eyes as he stared at the unmoving form of Darla.

"No one blames you, Kowalski. You tried, but frankly I'd be surprised if she managed to recover from something as bad as what she had, especially in this weather."

Kowalski paused, wiping his eyes once more as he looked at Skipper.

"Thanks for the words of encouragement. You didn't have to be so blunt about it, though."

"Sorry. Anyway, if you're up for it, we need to find a new campsite. This place is way too dangerous."

"But…but what about Darla? We can't just leave her here! We have to give her a proper burial."

"Where, Kowalski? I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but even if we did have shovels, it's pretty much all snow and ice everywhere. I doubt burying her under snow will work."

Kowalski glared at Skipper, wanting to smack him for suggesting that they leave Darla behind, but he knew there was no way they were going to be able to dig through the snow and the ground.

"Dammit…fine. I hope that you realize that this is going to hang over you for a long time."

Skipper stared at his feet forlornly, well aware of that fact.

"Come on, let's go tell the others." said Kowalski, still unhappy as he headed back towards the rest of the survivors. Skipper followed soon after reflecting for a few moments.

* * *

><p>Skipper had some difficulty convincing the rest of the group to abandon the campsite, but when they heard howls coming from off in the distance, they all agreed to go, not wanting to be around if and when the wolves come around.<p>

"Alright, now that everyone's on board, I have one thing that I want to do before we leave."

The survivors looked around in confusion, wondering what else needed to be done. Skipper paused for a second before continuing on.

"I'd rather not leave anything behind that could be useful, so we need to get as much as we can from the plane wreck. Hopefully there's still some stuff left."

Unfortunately, instead of immediately going along with Skipper's plan, the survivors traded looks as Kowalski spoke up.

"Uh, Skipper, we already had that idea when this whole thing started. I don't know if you've gotten a look since you woke up, but there was almost nothing left."

Skipper didn't immediately believe Kowalski, but he suddenly remembered that Private had searched through the plane while he had that chunk of metal in his gut.

He turned towards the small penguin, intending to ask him about it, but Private was already there with his answer.

"It was nearly empty, Skipper. Frankly, I was lucky to find that med kit to patch you up."

Skipper was very disappointed to hear about this new development. Still, he refused to give up on the chance that there may be at least something there.

"Private, Kowalski, Rico…you're coming with me. The rest of you can stay here for now."

"What? Didn't we just say that the plane was empty a few minutes ago?" asked Kowalski, taken aback.

"I know. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd feel better if we gave the wreckage one last look around before we head off."

The three penguins gave Skipper a disbelieving look.

"Hey, I just want to play it safe. That's all."

Finally, Kowalski reluctantly sighed.

"Alright. I'll come with you, but don't be surprised if we come back empty-handed."

Skipper turned towards Private and Rico.

"You guys coming along too?"

Both penguins nodded, although Private was reserved in his agreement.

Satisfied, Skipper began heading towards where the plane wreckage was, with the other three penguins following along behind him.

* * *

><p>When the group finally reached the still somehow burning wreckage of their plane, they all got to work, combing through whatever they could reach.<p>

However, only Skipper seemed to be putting any effort into it. Kowalski and Private still didn't believe that there would be anything, so they were both half-heartedly searching. As for Rico, he was just aimlessly walking around.

Skipper easily noticed their poor attempts at faking effort, and he turned towards the others, slightly angry.

"What are you two doing? You're not going to find anything dragging your feet like that!"

Kowalski opened his beak to explain, but Skipper held up a flipper.

"I know what you're gonna say, Kowalski. Please, just try to put in some effort. You never know, we might find something good."

Kowalski shrugged, figuring that he might as well give it a shot. So, the penguins returned to their search, this time with everyone giving it their all.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Skipper pushed aside a large piece of shrapnel and noticed a large box hiding under it. Intrigued, he looked inside and found something that made his face light up.

"Come quick, you guys! I think I've found something!"

Thankfully the other penguins were in the same area of the plane that Skipper was, so it didn't take them long to join him.

None of them spoke, so Skipper had to beckon them over to where the box was, and the three of them looked inside, their eyes all widening as they found out what was in it.

"Well I'll be damned." said Kowalski.

There were only a couple of tools in the box, but the penguins were all pretty happy to have something go well for them.

"Come on. Let's grab these things and get back to the camp. These ought to help speed things up once we find a new campsite."

The mood noticeably lightened, the penguins began making their way back to the campsite, things finally looking up for once.

* * *

><p>When they finally returned, the rest of the survivors looked at them expectantly.<p>

"Well, did you find anything?" asked Marlene, although her expression signified that she didn't expect much.

Her expression didn't change when the penguins showed the tools that they recovered from the wreckage.

"A hammer, a nail gun, a hand saw and a screwdriver. No offense, you guys, but we were kind of expecting you all to come back with food or medical supplies. Not stuff you'd build a house with."

Skipper sighed, somehow already having expected the reception they would get.

"Look, I know that these things aren't exactly useful right now, but I'm thinking about the future. What if rescue doesn't come soon? We need to find ways to defend ourselves, and most of these tools can be pretty useful. Heck, we can even use these with the new campsite!"

Marlene still wasn't convinced, but she decided that Skipper did have a point, however flimsy it was. Reluctantly, she sighed.

"If you guys are ready, I'm sure that we all want to leave."

The other survivors all murmured their agreement, which led to Skipper making his way towards the front of the group.

"Before we leave, make sure that everyone has everything that they need. I do not want to have to come back because someone forgot something important? Do you all understand?"

The group all nodded, and they temporarily disbanded, combing through the campsite one last time. When they all returned to where Skipper was standing, he assumed that they must have gotten everything.

"So, if everyone's ready, let's head out!"

Skipper turned around and began to walk; quickly checking behind him to make sure that everyone was behind him. It didn't happen immediately, but the survivors slowly started walking, following right behind him.

As the group began their journey through the frozen tundra of Alaska, a thought crept into Skipper's head. He wondered whether he was making a mistake by making the group have to endure subzero temperatures. However, he realized that this was more like the lesser of two evils. If they didn't leave, they probably would all be dead.

Not wanting to dwell on that fact, Skipper returned his focus to the road ahead, hoping that nothing would go wrong along the way.


	6. Chapter 6

As Skipper expected, the journey through the Alaskan tundra was very rough. Even though he and the other penguins didn't have as much of a problem in dealing with the extreme cold, the wind made it difficult to get around.

Sighing, he turned to check on the rest of the group, and he found that they were having a much worse time. A majority of them were bundled up like crazy, but it didn't help, as he could clearly see people shivering.

Facing forward once again, Skipper thought for a moment before turning towards Private as they continued walking.

"How are you holding up, Private?"

"Doing alright, Skipper. I'm kind of worried about everyone else, though. Outside of me, you, Kowalski, Rico and Hans, no one's really built for this kind of weather."

"Same here. How about you take Hans and trail behind the rest of the group?"

Private stopped in his tracks for a second, giving Skipper an incredulous look.

"Why would I want to do that?"

"So you can keep an eye on everyone. If anyone starts to lag behind for any reason, you can help them out."

"Oh, okay. I can do that."

Even though Private looked like he wanted to do anything besides that, he slowed his pace down so that he met up with Hans, and they had a quick conversation before heading towards the back of the pack.

Satisfied, Skipper faced forward once again, and the survivors continued on their way.

* * *

><p>What seemed like hours passed, and the survivors still had yet to find a suitable place to set up the new camp. They were walking non-stop trying to find the campsite, and it was starting to affect the group's morale.<p>

Some of the people looked defeated, thinking that they were probably going to freeze to death before they found a campsite. Others, however, were starting to get angry, including Kowalski, who decided to voice his displeasure with Skipper.

"Skipper, we've been at this for hours! Why haven't we found a place to set up camp?"

"It's not safe, Kowalski. Whenever we find a place where we not all going to get killed, we can set up camp there."

Kowalski paused, fuming.

"Look around you, Skipper! We're in the middle of a frozen wasteland teeming with god knows how many predators! What makes you think we're gonna find a place where we don't have those to deal with? Huh?"

Skipper opened his beak to argue, only to realize that Kowalski had a point. As much as he wanted to find a safe place for everyone to stay so that everyone can stay alive long enough for rescue, he knew that it was pretty much impossible at this stage.

He quickly looked around the area, finding a forest a couple of miles away. As Kowalski angrily waited for a reply, Skipper squinted into the distance, checking to see if there was anything that would make it too dangerous for them to stay there.

"Well?"

Kowalski's impatience forced Skipper to quickly make a decision. However, before he could turn to the scientist to speak, a loud yell came from the back of the group mixed with a noise that Skipper knew all too well.

"Shit."

He quickly lifted his gun before rushing towards the back of the group. Once he finally had a clear line of sight with the battle, he didn't waste any time trying to figure out what was going on. He lifted his rifle, aimed and fired.

The only noise in the Alaskan tundra came from the wind, as Skipper lowered his gun and finally laid eyes on the scene in front of him.

The wolf that Skipper correctly assumed was there was on the ground whimpering, with a bullet wound in its side. Private was kneeling off to the side of the wolf trying to catch his breath. Outside of a trio of claw marks across his right cheek, he looked largely unhurt.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the body next to the wolf, who Skipper realized was Hans. The puffin looked like he was mauled pretty badly. As much as Skipper didn't want to think about it, he was pretty sure Hans did not survive.

"God dammit!" he yelled, kicking at a mound of snow and sending it flying into the air.

Skipper yelled and cursed for a couple of minutes, angry that people were still dying despite his best attempts to prevent it from happening. Although Private was slightly worried that the noise Skipper was making was going to attract more wolves, he decided to let him vent.

Finally, after he managed to calm himself down, Skipper walked over to Private, a stern look on his face.

"What happened, Private?"

"I don't know! The wolf practically came out of nowhere while we were all stopped. I tried to pull him off, but I just ended up getting this instead!"

He pointed to claw marks on his face as he finished speaking. However, instead of leaving it there, Skipper walked up to where Private was standing and got in his face.

"So, why didn't you shoot?"

Private immediately went white, realizing that he hadn't thought about doing that. He looked down at his flippers and saw that there was no gun in either of them.

Unable to process the decision he made, he turned away from Skipper, sitting down and staring at the lifeless body of Hans, a blank look on his face.

As much as Skipper wanted to dwell on the fact that Private's decision ended up getting Hans killed, he knew that leaving him the way he is will only lead to trouble further down the line, so he decided to sit down next to Private and attempt to bring him back from the edge.

As Skipper stared at Private, trying to figure out what he should say, the other penguin didn't even move an inch, his focus still on Hans's corpse as he wondered why he didn't just shoot the wolf.

Finally, Skipper sighed before turning towards his friend.

"Look Private, I…I'm sorry if I upset you with what I said before. Nobody ever makes the right decision all of the time. There are times when decisions that a person makes can end up making something drastic happen, for better or for worse."

Skipper paused for a second, but before he could continue on, Private spoke up.

"I had my gun in my flippers. Why did I throw it away?"

Skipper sighed once again as he looked at Private.

"It's true that you do have to live with the consequences of your decisions, but it doesn't have to be all bad. There are some good things that can come from what you did."

"Like what? All I got was this scratch and a dead comrade."

Skipper paused for a second, trying to quickly think of something despite not having seen the entire exchange.

"Uh…well, your positive outlook on life definitely helped. Even though the wolf was attacking Hans, you didn't immediately go for the gun. I think that you believed in your heart that there was some good in the wolf and that it didn't deserve to die."

Skipper looked at Private, hoping that his little speech helped Private out. However, he was surprised to find Private looking at Hans's body once more.

Disappointed, Skipper stood up and was prepared to leave him alone. He began to walk back towards the front of the group, only to hear another set of footsteps behind him.

He turned around and found Private standing right behind him, a determined look on his face. Private slowly breathed in and out before speaking.

"You're right, Skipper. I shouldn't be moping about because of one bad decision that I made. We may have lost someone, but I want us all to make it so that his sacrifice was not in vain."

Skipper smiled, patting Private on the shoulder. As Skipper headed back towards the front of the group, Private quickly ran back and found his gun, holding on to it as he joined Skipper and the rest of the penguins at the front.

However, before they continued walking, Skipper stepped forward between the penguins and the rest of the survivors, pointing towards the wooded area that he saw before the attack as he spoke.

"I saw a forest a few miles over that way. We should be able to get over there and set up camp before nightfall."

"Wait, are you sure you want to go there? I mean, we just got attacked by another wolf." said Marlene from within the group.

"Believe me, Marlene, I'd like to get away from them as much as you do. The only problem is that we don't have that kind of time to find another place. It's getting pretty dark, and I'm sure most of you are probably happy to finally have a place to rest."

The rest of the group outside of Marlene agreed, and even though Marlene was still worried about how close they possibly were to more wolves, she decided to follow along.

* * *

><p>The survivors finally managed to make it to the wooded area with time to spare before nightfall. Not wanting to waste time, they immediately set to work, getting a fire going and setting up whatever supplies they brought with them from the crash site.<p>

After a few seconds of awkward silence, the group went about their businesses, almost like they were still at the original campsite and they never traveled a hundred miles in one day.

However, when things finally were settled, everyone realized that they were very hungry. Apparently, dealing with the cold must have overridden the feeling of being hungry.

Thankfully, there was some spare food, but not enough for everyone, so some ended up having to share, much to everyone's chagrin.

Some of the survivors were beginning to voice their displeasure with the food arrangements, so Skipper ended up being the one to have to explain what they would have to be doing.

"This will be enough to at least get us through the rest of the night. We'll go hunting in the morning."

Not everyone was satisfied with Skipper's explanation, but they all knew that there was no way to get around it, so they simply decided to just deal with it until the morning came along.

It was also starting to get dark as well, so hunting was pretty much not an option at the moment. Everyone decided it was in their best interests to go to sleep, so they all bundled up as best as they could and got as close as they could to the fire before finally falling asleep, hoping that the wildlife would at least be nice to them now that the threat of wolves was less apparent in the part of the wilderness they were in.


	7. Chapter 7

After finally loading all of their supplies on to the plane, the expedition team got on to the plane themselves, finding seats and strapping themselves in for the long ride ahead.

Considering the fact that they were on a cargo plane, there were no real seats around, so the entire group was clustered in the same area, sitting on uncomfortable seats that were really only meant for extenuating circumstances.

As the team waited for the pilot to make his final checks before lift-off, no one in the cargo bay said anything, even though this was technically the first time that any of them met.

Even Skipper was surprised to see the lack of communication, and he turned towards Private to voice his concerns.

"What's with the silence? I figured that you guys would have at least had some interactions between each other before now."

Private shrugged.

"Believe me; I would have liked that, too. The only problem is that most of the people here came from all over the country. I think some of them have only just gotten here today."

"You're really on a tight schedule there, Private."

"I know. As I've said before, the guys who run the airfield wanted our plane out of here earlier than I originally heard from them, so things have been a little hectic."

"Any reason why?"

Before Private could answer, the door to the cockpit suddenly opened, and the pilot stepped through, greeting the team with a wave.

"Hey guys. Sorry to have pulled you out of bed a little earlier than originally planned. We're supposed to be getting a lot of travelers coming in to the airfield at this time of year, so we had to rush things a bit to clear some space."

After seeing some of the nervous looks on the faces of some of the team, the pilot moved to defuse their concerns.

"Don't worry, you guys. We didn't skimp on anything. Everything's completely up to code. Anyway, we're just about done with final checks, so if anyone needs to do their business before we lift off, now's the time."

The pilot looked around to see if anyone would take the opportunity, but no one did, since Private had made sure that everyone had done their jobs before heading on to the plane.

Satisfied, the pilot nodded before returning to the cockpit and closing the door behind him.

* * *

><p>Skipper woke up the next morning, thankfully without everyone else being crowded around another dead body.<p>

Admittedly, Skipper was worried that would have happened again, considering that was what happened to Darla yesterday morning, but with everyone seemingly still alright, that took a load off of his mind.

He decided it was best to not waste any time, considering they haven't really had much to eat since leaving the original campsite, so he collected Private, Kowalski and Rico and headed off into the woods.

As the penguins began to walk through the forest to find anything worth hunting, Skipper had something weighing on his mind.

"Hey guys, do you think that I'm being too hard on everyone?"

The other three penguins were surprised to hear this from the normally no nonsense Skipper.

"What do you mean by that, Skipper?" asked Private, curious.

Skipper paused, not immediately answering Private's question.

"Well…I've noticed while we were traveling, some of the others were giving me dirty looks. I think maybe I might have gone about it the wrong way when trying to convince them about the crash site being unsafe."

"You're doing fine, Skipper. They may not have liked having to travel hundreds of miles through sub-zero temperatures, but at least everyone manage to make it fine. Well…almost everyone." said Kowalski.

Private felt a twinge of guilt for a moment as he was reminded of what happened. He awkwardly coughed, catching everyone's attention.

"Um, don't you think we should be getting back to hunting? All this talking is probably gonna scare away potential food for us."

Although Skipper had a feeling about the reason for Private changing the subject, he decided just to ignore it. Falling silent, he beckoned for the rest of the penguins to follow him, and they continued making their way into the woods.

Eventually, after not being able to find anything for a while, the group finally managed to come across a couple of rabbits. The penguins immediately hid behind a nearby bush and froze until they realized that the rabbits were not going anywhere.

"Each of you guys aim for one of the rabbits. When I make the signal, fire as quickly as you can. Hopefully we should be able to get all of them at once." whispered Skipper.

Private, Rico and Kowalski nodded, and the four of them took up positions, aiming their sights down at each of the rabbits, who luckily have still not moved from the area.

Skipper held up a flipper, counting down from three in his head before quickly pumping it downwards, grabbing the trigger and firing just as the other three fired as well.

Hoping that his plan worked out, Skipper lowered the gun and attempting to figure out if they managed to hit them from where they were standing at the moment.

Unfortunately, with the rabbits being white, it made finding them more difficult than it needed to be, so he turned back towards the other penguins.

"Come on, let's go see what we've got."

After the four penguins reached the area where the rabbits were, they found only three rabbits there, when Skipper originally remembered seeing four.

"Dammit, we lost one. Who missed?"

"Sorry, Skipper. I missed the signal." said Private.

Skipper sighed, shaking his head.

"It's alright, Private. We can manage with three of them. Let's head back to the campsite."

However, before they could do so, Kowalski spoke up.

"Are you sure this is wise, Skipper? I doubt three rabbits are really gonna be able to feed six of us."

"I know, Kowalski. We've been through this the last hunting trip. All we can really do is split the rabbits between us."

Kowalski paused, not sure whether Skipper had the right idea with what to do with their catch. Eventually, though, his stomach rumbled, and he sighed.

"Alright, Skipper. I'll trust your judgment."

"See what I mean? It's already pretty barren out here. Waiting any longer would only make things worse."

"I get your point, Skipper! You don't have to rub it in." said Kowalski, slightly annoyed.

With Skipper satisfied, the penguins finally began to make their way back to the campsite with three of them carrying the rabbits they have just killed.

* * *

><p>Thankfully, compared to their last hunting trip, the penguins didn't come home to find a heated argument going on, but that was most likely due to the fact that only Marlene and Maurice were still alive out of the original group.<p>

After rejoining the others, Skipper collected all of the meat from the other penguins and placed them on one of the logs they had collected to use as a seat.

The other non-penguin survivors stood up to take a look at the haul and were disappointed to find out how meager it actually was.

"Is that it? To be honest, I was expecting something a little more…substantial." said Maurice, earning him a glare from Skipper.

"Hey, we did our best out there! That was practically the only animals that were out during the morning."

Maurice sighed.

"Are you sure? You guys didn't see any deer or anything out there? Because seriously, I know there's only six of us left, but the rabbit we had during your last hunting trip wasn't exactly all that filling."

Skipper shook his head before sitting down on the log next to the kills.

"We need to make a plan. We can't just expect to live the rest of our lives on this deserted tundra."

Although she was admittedly caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, Marlene was obviously skeptical about what they could do.

"So, what do you expect us to do? We haven't exactly seen a helicopter or anything since we crashed. Heck, I'm not even sure they know we're stuck out here!"

"You know, Marlene's right, Skipper. There was no sign of the pilots after we crashed. We don't know if they radioed for help or not!" said Kowalski.

Skipper made a move to dismiss Marlene and Kowalski's concerns when his mind latched on to something Kowalski said.

"Wait, did you say that there was no sign of the pilots?"

"Well, uh…we didn't exactly do a thorough check around the crash site, so we might have missed them."

"Or they might have jumped out of the plane to save themselves. Who knows, really?" interjected Private.

Skipper swore under his breath, standing up and beginning to pace as he tried to think of something that they could do.

"Well, we're miles away from the crash site, so trying to find them is out of the question."

Skipper continued to pace, trying his hardest to think of an idea, but nothing came to him. Defeated, he slumped back down on the log and sighed. Private walked over to where Skipper was sitting and sat down next to him, placing a flipper on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Skipper. I'm sure we'll find a way to get us out of this mess."

Almost as if on cue, the group of survivors heard the whir of helicopter blades getting louder by the second.

"Holy crap, is that a helicopter?" asked Maurice.

Rather than answer, Skipper rushed off towards where the sound was coming from, forcing the rest of the survivors to rush off after him to keep up.

Once they reached a clearing in the forest, Skipper finally managed to spot the helicopter in question. The only problem, however, was that it was very high in the sky, so it seemed unlikely that they could catch the pilot's attention. Skipper was undeterred, though, and he began wildly waving into the air and yelling, hoping that the helicopter would see them.

After a few seconds, the other survivors joined in, but by that time the helicopter had already passed by them, and Skipper realized that it wasn't going to come back. Skipper swore once again, angrily kicking at a patch of snow and sending it flying into the air before turning towards the rest of the group.

"Why didn't you guys try to get his attention?"

Marlene sighed.

"Look, I'm sorry. I was just caught off guard by the helicopter suddenly showing up. I didn't know what to do."

Skipper looked towards the rest of the group.

"Is that the excuse for the rest of you?"

Everyone nodded, and Skipper sighed, pinching the bridge of his beak.

"Come on, let's get back to the camp before the wolves take our rabbits."


	8. Chapter 8

After finally returning to the campsite, the remaining survivors found that the rabbits were still in the same place as they left them, but it was only a small comfort to them, as most of them took the failed rescue pretty hard.

Maurice and Marlene both went off into different corners of the campsite, while Private and Kowalski were busy trying to hold themselves together. As for Rico, well, there wasn't too much that affected him.

In Skipper's case, he was trying to occupy himself by pacing back and forth along the campsite, desperately trying to think of another option for them to get rescued. However, as the minutes passed, Skipper was beginning to get less and less confident as he realized that the chances of another helicopter passing by were pretty unlikely.

Sighing, Skipper was about to sit down for a moment when he noticed Maurice and Marlene off in their corners. He knew that he needed them up and running if they were going to make it, so before heading over to try and comfort them, he walked over to where Kowalski and Private were, placing his flippers on Private's shoulders.

"Private, listen to me. I need you and Kowalski to bring Marlene back from what she's going through right now. I'll deal with Maurice."

Private nodded, but Skipper didn't let go.

"You sure you're gonna be alright, Private? I don't want you breaking down on me."

Although Skipper saw through Private's attempt to hide his expression, he decided that this was the best he was going to get, so he let Private go and headed over to where Maurice was sitting.

As Skipper sat down next to him, he didn't know exactly what to say at first, so he simply placed a flipper on the aye-aye's shoulder.

"Everything's gonna be alright, Maurice. We're gonna make it."

"Yeah, but how? That was the first helicopter we've seen since the crash, and it didn't even see us! What makes you think another one's gonna come around?" said Maurice, turning on Skipper angrily.

Caught off guard by Maurice's sudden outburst, Skipper didn't answer immediately as he tried to think of what to say. Finally, he sighed, thinking that it was better not to try and get his hopes up.

"Look, I know things are looking bad for us. We can't let that get us down, though. I mean, with the way things are going in this camp right now, we're not gonna make it another night. But if we stick together and remain positive, we might have a chance."

Having said what he wanted to say, Skipper looked to see if he did anything with Maurice, but the look on the aye-aye's face told him that it didn't work as well as he thought. Sighing once again, he stood up.

"If you want to talk, Maurice, just find me."

As Skipper was about to walk away, he suddenly noticed Maurice's expression change slightly. He couldn't really tell what it meant, but he imagined that his speech must have made some kind of change.

After finally walking off, Skipper thought about making his way over to where Kowalski and Private were attempting to console Marlene, but he changed his mind, thinking that they had it under control.

Instead, Skipper went over to one of the logs by the campfire and lied down on it, figuring that if he slept on it, an idea might come to him. Also, he figured that it was probably safe enough, considering the fact that they haven't seen any wolves since the journey over.

So, once he managed to find a somewhat comfortable position, Skipper closed his eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Even though it was only an hour since the plane took off, to the team it felt like forever. Half of the time was spent in awkward silence, considering most of the people on the team were meeting for the first time.<p>

There was also the fact that this plane wasn't built for passengers, so the seats they were in weren't the most comfortable seats in the world.

So, as the plane continued to fly on, different members of the team were trying their own ways to keep their minds off of the pain that they were going through, as well as the crushing boredom.

Suddenly, the plane began to shake violently, and a few of the passengers were jostled out of their seats thanks to the lack of seatbelts on some of the seats.

"What in the heck was that?" asked Kowalski from his position on the floor.

Before anybody in the back could answer, the cockpit door opened, and one of the pilots popped his head out, a smile on his face that a majority of the people in the plane could tell was plastered on.

"Sorry folks, but we're running through a bit of turbulence at the moment. I'm not sure exactly how much longer it will last, but we're hoping to pass through it soon."

Without waiting for an answer, the pilot's head disappeared back behind the door. As the door shut, Marlene turned towards the rest of the group.

"Did anyone else see how fake that smile that guy had on was? There might be something going on with them."

"I doubt that it has anything to do with them. From what I can tell, the storm we're in does look pretty violent." said Kowalski as he looked out the window.

"Hey, as long as we make it through this, we'll be fine." said Skipper.

However, just as Skipper said that, a bolt of lightning struck the wing, and sheared off a large chunk of the metal. As the mangled wing burst into flames, everyone began panicking.

"Oh my god, we're hit!" said Marlene.

The only one still trying to remain calm was Skipper, and not wanting to waste any valuable time, he immediately got out of his seat and ran as fast as he could to the cockpit door, barely managing to get his feet back under him as the plane began to nosedive.

After a few hard kicks, Skipper finally managed to get the cockpit door open, only to find it empty, as both of the pilots were gone.

"What the hell?" he said, before a falling piece of equipment conked him on the head.

As Skipper fell and his vision began to go white, the only thing he could hear was the screams of his teammates as the plane collided with the ground.

* * *

><p>Skipper woke up suddenly, realizing a few seconds after he woke up that it was night time.<p>

"Must have been really tired today." he said to himself as he got up.

Apparently with everything that went on today, the adrenaline must have overridden the fact that he didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

Skipper stood up and looked around for a moment before realizing that there seemed to be a heated argument going on with the rest of the survivors across the campsite. Slightly annoyed, Skipper made his way over to the others.

"Hey! What the heck is going on here?"

Everyone else froze, caught off guard by Skipper's outburst.

"Oh, uh…sorry Skipper. I forgot that you were still asleep." said Kowalski.

"Never mind that, Kowalski. Just tell me what you guys were arguing about."

"We're just trying to figure out a way to get out of here." said Private.

"Only problem is that nobody can seem to agree on one to go for." said Kowalski.

Skipper sighed.

"Alright, I'll join in with you guys. We'll see if we can get a consensus going so we can get the heck out of here."

Without waiting for an answer, Skipper stood next to Private, and they began to debate.

Unfortunately, even with Skipper's help, the discussion still turned into a chaotic mess, and the survivors began to loudly argue about the merits of their idea.

Having had enough, Skipper was about to make his way to the center of the circle to bring some order back to the meeting, but Private looked over to him and shook his head.

Confused, Skipper paused for a moment before Private made his way to the center of the group and loudly whistled, making everyone else go quiet.

Satisfied that he had everyone's attention, Private stood on top of one of the logs and began speaking, the other survivors listening intently.

"Stop fighting everyone! We need to work together on this if we're gonna continue to survive, if not get rescued!"

Everyone continued to listen as Private gave an impassioned speech, trying to get everyone to coexist together, as without it, they'd essentially go the same way as the others in the group did.

Finally, after finishing what he was going to say, Private paused for a moment and looked around the group.

"Now, who's with me?"

Before anyone could answer that question, Private was suddenly ambushed by a large wolf. Completely caught off guard, Private could only desperately try to hold the wolf's jaws off of him, but his strength was failing him pretty quickly.

"Private!" Skipper yelled.

Quickly reacting, Skipper ran over to the guns and grabbed one of the rifles, aiming towards the wolf and firing multiple times.

Even with the sheer panic going through Skipper's mind, each of his shots hit their target, and the wolf fell over dead.

Skipper froze for a moment as he looked at Private's barely conscious form, before he dropped the gun and rushed over to him.

"Oh god. Private, I'm so sorry. If only I was a little faster…" he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

"It's okay, Skipper. I know you tried." said Private weakly.

As Private began coughing up blood, Skipper desperately looked around, trying to see if there was anything he could do, but it was already too late. Still, Private was somehow managing to hold on, and he managed to say one more thing.

"Skipper, I have something I need to tell you."

Although Skipper wanted to tell Private not to speak so he could save his strength, he knew that it was pretty much pointless now, so he leaned in to listen.

"It's…my real name."

Slightly interested, Skipper leaned in closer as Private whispered it into his earhole.

"Skipper."

And he went limp, never to return again.

* * *

><p><strong>One more chapter to go, guys! Sorry it's so short, but if I dragged it out any longer, I would run out of shit for them to do, and being in the middle of the Alaskan tundra doesn't help in the first place.<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

In shock, Skipper almost dropped Private's…I mean, Skipper's…head and let it fall to the ground. However, he was able to catch it once again and set him carefully down to the ground.

After letting him go, Skipper stood up, a faraway look in his eyes as he tried to process what he was told.

"I don't understand. How can there be someone else who has my name? I thought having Skipper as a name was pretty rare!"

Skipper turned towards Kowalski, who was looking at the scene in front of him in confusion.

"Did he ever tell you what his real name was?"

"No, never! Besides, I asked him about it as well, but he wouldn't tell me either."

Annoyed, Skipper clutched at his head.

"Agh, this makes no sense!"

Marlene was about to come forward to try and comfort Skipper, but stopped when she realized something important.

"Uh, Skipper? Was that a British accent I just heard?"

Skipper looked at her in confusion.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Suddenly, Skipper clamped his flippers over his beak as he realized that a British accent was indeed slipping through.

"Skipper? Is there something that you're hiding from us?" asked Kowalski.

Skipper considered denying that he was hiding anything, but when he noticed the looks that the four other remaining survivors were giving him, he knew there was no use trying to hide it anymore.

Sighing, he spoke up, the British accent coming through clearly.

"Skippah's not my real name. My name's actually Private, which is kind of a surprise, considering what he was calling himself."

He pointed towards the unmoving corpse of the former Private as he spoke.

"Frankly, I was kind of wondering why you were all calling me Skippah."

"Well, to be honest, we just went with what…Skipper…was calling you." said Maurice, nearly calling his deceased teammate Private again.

The group fell silent for a little bit before Marlene spoke up.

"All this just doesn't make any sense to me! Why were you trying to hide your true identity?"

Private turned away, not wanting the others to see what kind of torment he was going through as he spoke.

"I've done a lot of horrible things in my line of work. I killed a lot of animals. I mean, sure, they were threatening the safety of people that I've worked with, but that doesn't make it any less painful to see. For god's sake, I nearly committed suicide!"

Private paused to collect himself before continuing on.

"I knew I had to get out before things got worse, so I changed my name and went into hiding. But somehow Skippah managed to find me. How? I have no idea."

"How did you manage to get rid of the accent, though? It doesn't seem like something you could do easily." said Maurice.

"Lots of practice."

Having exhausted every possible avenue for questions, the group of survivors fell silent, as they all tried to refocus after the massive revelations they just went through.

However, their thoughts were interrupted when they all heard growling coming from in the distance.

"What was that?" asked Marlene, frightened.

"More wolves. They must have heard the gunshots. We need to move."

Not wanting to waste time arguing, the group made their way over to their supplies to pack them up.

"Leave them! We don't have time to pack all of this stuff up!"

Unfortunately, the survivors' need for the supplies overrode their need to get away from the wolves, so they continued packing the supplies, but at a faster pace. As much as Private tried to get them to hurry up and get moving, the wolves were able to catch up and begin attacking.

"RUN!" yelled Private.

He began heading off towards the south, hoping that the other survivors were going in the same direction that he was. However, he didn't want to risk looking behind him and giving the wolves a chance to catch up.

As for the other survivors, they did in fact start heading the same direction as Private, but not everyone managed to make it away from the campsite.

Maurice was sitting down when the wolves arrived, so by the time he was able to get up, a wolf was already on top of him, and he didn't have a chance.

Rico was unfortunately the next to go, as he didn't want to just run away. He attempted to head for one of the guns to defend himself, but a wolf got there first. Rico put up a good fight in trying to get the wolf off of him, but even a penguin of his considerable girth wasn't able to hold the wolf off for long.

Kowalski and Marlene were thankfully able to catch up to Private, and after running full tilt, they somehow managed to lose the wolves, as they hid inside a cluster of trees near a river.

After catching their breath, the group remained silent for a little while, listening to see if the wolves were around. They couldn't hear anything, though, so to make sure, Private looked around the area.

"I think they're gone."

Kowalski stood up with Private, but Marlene remained sitting. Concerned, Private walked over and attempted to comfort her.

"Come on, Marlene. Don't worry. You'll be fine, as long as we get out of here."

"No, we're not going to be fine. We're all going to die." said Marlene, a frightened look on her face.

Sighing, Private was about to make another attempt when two wolves showed up, growling. Private turned around to face Marlene and get her to calm down, but he heard a scream, and when he finally laid eyes on her, she shot off in the opposite direction, one of the wolves hot on her tail.

"Marlene, wait!" yelled Private.

He made an attempt to go after her, but Kowalski held him back.

"There's no time! We have to go now!"

Although Private desperately wanted to go back and help Marlene, he reluctantly followed Kowalski as the two of them headed towards the river.

When they finally made it to the riverbank, they were surprised to find that the river was way larger than they thought it was when coming up to it.

"That ice doesn't look too thick." said Private.

After glancing back and noticing that the other wolf was stalking them, Kowalski turned back to reply.

"We don't really have a choice. Just take it slow and we should be safe."

Spreading out a few feet from each other, Private and Kowalski began slowly making their way across the river, while the wolf approached the riverbank.

As the two penguins continued to cross the river, desperately trying to get across and away from the wolf, the wolf itself finally stepped on to the sheet of ice, only for the combined weight of the three animals to lead to the ice beginning to crack and eventually send the wolf into the water.

"Yes, it's gone!" said Private.

"It may be gone, but that hole is going to cause more cracks in the ice. We have to move!"

Nearly jumping in fright, Private noticed that the cracks coming from the hole the wolf fell into were beginning to approach the two of them as the ice began to break.

Panicking, Private tiptoed as quickly as he could to the other side of the river, successfully managing to make it over. However, as he turned around to face Kowalski and prepare to help him over, he saw that the other penguin was not moving.

"K'walski? What's going on?"

Private made a move back on to the river, but Kowalski frantically gestured for him to back off.

"Don't come any closer! Any more weight, and you're going to break the ice!"

Private immediately backed off, and Kowalski slowly began breathing in and out.

"Alright…just have to slowly step off of this ice, and I should be good."

Kowalski began moving forward as slowly as he possibly could. Even Private was beginning to think that the scientist could make it, but out of nowhere, the ice under Kowalski broke, and he went under.

"K'walski!" Private yelled.

He immediately went over to the hole and dropped on to his belly, attempting to reach down and grab Kowalski with his flipper, but the currents under the ice prevented Kowalski from being able to resurface, and he eventually drowned.

Angry, Private pulled his flipper out of the hole and slammed both of them against the ice.

"Why now? I was so close!"

Now alone, Private paused, lying down in the snow for a little while to reflect on the multitude of lost chances he had to be able to save the other survivors.

"I'm worthless. I can't save anyone." he said to himself before getting up and walking off after a few more minutes of wallowing in his sorrows.

Private spent the next hour wandering aimlessly, wondering where else he could go in life. Even if he did manage to get rescued, the deaths of nine other people would weigh on his mind for the rest of his life, although it was unclear what happened to Marlene.

Sighing, Private continued to walk, eventually finding himself in front of a cave. Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind telling him not to go inside, Private walked inside and sat down next to one of the walls, only to jump back up.

Swearing, he looked down at where he was sitting to find some stray beer bottles scattered around the area, with one of them shattered into pieces.

The more important thing he found, though, was a tattered knapsack. Curious, Private looked inside and found a small knife and a roll of duct tape. Although he was slightly confused at the odd pairing of items inside said knapsack, Private knew that these kinds of things would be useful for defending himself.

He grabbed the roll of tape and wrapped it around his flipper a few times, tearing it off and tossing it aside. He then started grabbing some of the glass shards from the bottle and sticking them to the tape, thinking that the more sharp objects he had, the better chance he had to survive.

Satisfied with the amount of glass he had on, he grabbed the knife in his other flipper and waited, expecting the wolves to eventually find him.

And find him they did, as the alpha wolf came into the cave, slowly creeping his way up to Private. Once Private noticed the wolf, though, he surprisingly scoffed.

"You know what's funny? How inevitable life is. You're born. You live. You die. Happens to everyone."

Obviously, the wolf couldn't understand what Private was saying, so he was pretty much talking to himself at this point.

After finally figuring out that it was pointless to keep talking, Private stood up. Sighing, he adopted a stern look in his eyes, before lunging at the wolf, knife in front of him.

* * *

><p><strong>I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for sticking with me throughout this (even though there was barely any reviews). Just in case you're wondering, I'm leaving Marlene's fate open to interpretation, mostly so I can get something going in terms of conversation.<strong>

**As for Private, keep reading, there's a special scene right under this. And before you get mad, that's how the scene was in the movie, and I wanted to keep it like that.**

* * *

><p>The cave fell silent after a pitched battle between Private and the alpha wolf. The wolf was lying on the ground, injured and breathing heavily. Private was also breathing heavily as he lied against the wolf. However, the only thing that can be seen of him was the back of his head, so the reason as to why he was breathing heavily is unclear.<p> 


End file.
